Get the latest stories, special reports and in-depth analysis on skynews.com/cop26 On Saturday, as COP26 drew to a close, delegates unanimously endorsed the Glasgow Climate Pact, an update to the Paris Agreement to subsidize coal-fired power plants and fossil fuels, and calls on countries to create more aggressive climate plans next year. These new agreements represent a huge step forward in the international climate debate – but few delegates were willing to celebrate openly. Statement after statement at the closing sessions, negotiators from countries around the world indicated that they accepted the text in a “spirit of compromise” while deploring the fact that the agreement did not go far enough. “The text represents the least worst result,” New Zealand Climate Minister James Shaw told his counterparts on Friday. However, despite these concerns, some progress has undoubtedly been made. A roadmap has been developed for updating Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) which, according to the analysis of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), do not meet the 1.5°C targets. But for rich countries to earn their less prosperous counterparts with such programs, greater efforts would likely be needed to build trust. In the final days of the Glasgow talks, negotiations largely revolved around rich countries providing sufficient financing to poor countries to adapt to the effects of climate change and to cover the inevitable damage and financial losses caused by increased droughts, floods and other climate-related events. As representatives of the poorest and most vulnerable countries have made clear, the historical emissions of rich countries have largely fuelled their wealth accumulation, while other parts of the world have been exposed to the effects of these emissions. The final agreement includes a call to double the financing of the adjustment, as well as a promise to continue working on the issue of loss and damage. Last summer, I wrote that a confluence of events such as the US presidential election, massive spending on COVID-19 stimulus measures, and the upcoming negotiations in Glasgow 2020-2021 would make them the most crucial years in the fight against climate change to date, during which decisions made would decide whether the world will surpass the 1.5°C mark that scientists say: that it will trigger the worst effects of climate change. “Countries and their leaders, fossil fuel industry lobbies and private companies must all be held accountable not only for not keeping the promises made at the meeting, but also for the loss of life and damage to our ecosystems caused by their actions,” King said.
National and international lawyers play a crucial role in managing this responsibility. And we, the scientific community, play a crucial role in analyzing each country`s actions year after year to create a secure future for humanity.” Governments have endorsed the Glasgow Climate Pact and made new commitments for deforestation, methane emissions, coal and more. However, critics say they have failed to meet more ambitious commitments to limit global warming. “We are all aware that our overall climate ambitions and measures have not lived up to the promises made in Paris,” said Alok Sharma, Britain`s minister of state and chairman of the Glasgow talks, who appeared moved on Saturday after the short-term change in fossil fuel supply. Over the past two weeks, many “smaller” but equally inspiring commitments have been made, including one of the 11 countries that formed the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA). Ireland, France, Denmark and Costa Rica, as well as some subnational governments, have created this first such alliance to set an end date for domestic oil and gas exploration and production. While some observers say the COP26 agreement represents the “beginning of a breakthrough”, some countries in Africa and Latin America have felt that progress has not been sufficient. If you`re wondering why countries would do it next year if they didn`t do it this year, you`re not alone. Given the already profound urgency of climate change, it`s hard to imagine what else the needle could move. Jennifer Morgan, director of Greenpeace International, says the pressure on governments of activists and youth will only grow. “After that meeting, 1.5 is barely alive,” Morgan says.
“What would give me confidence is the power of people that exists all over the world – and it`s only growing. This is an opportunity to hold governments accountable for the promises they have made on the world stage. More than 1,000 universities in 68 countries have made a number of new commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and change their impact on nature, including a new initiative for nature-positive universities. Over the past 12 months, academic institutions around the world have joined the United Nations` Race to Zero campaign and pledged to reduce their carbon emissions to zero by 2050 at the latest. The initiative was led by the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges and Second Nature with support from UNEP. Experts say the conference failed to meet the commitments needed to reduce emissions to the point of meeting the Paris Agreement`s goal of limiting warming. But if governments honour the commitments made at COP26 and increase their ambitions over the next few years, the goal could be within reach. Lord. Sharma apologized for “the way the process has evolved,” adding that he understands that some delegations are “deeply disappointed” that stronger language has not been included in the final agreement.
It has made promises on methane emissions, the transition to clean energy and decarbonisation, and plans to implement them in the “critical decade of the 2020s”. The agreements reached at COP26 include 130 countries around the world, including Pakistan, that commit to halting deforestation and reversing deforestation and reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Around 30 major Pakistani companies have signed up for Pakistan`s 26for26 campaign in the UK, pledging to halve their CO2 emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The COP26 negotiations would never cause the world to warm up to 1.5°C on its own. In fact, the main reason why this conference should be so important is a requirement in the Paris Agreement that countries submit new national climate commitments to the COP in Glasgow. The hope was that this year`s conference would serve as a common goal to get countries to do their own work to find a way to reduce national emissions between the Paris and Glasgow conferences. But in the weeks leading up to Glasgow, it became clear that these efforts would be insufficient. A report by the UN Panel of Experts on Climate Change, released in October ahead of the conference, found that commitments made in the run-up to COP26 would not bring the world closer to the 1.5°C target; The UNFCCC predicted that they would mean that the globe would likely experience an average temperature increase of up to 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels. A number of announcements during the conference – ranging from vague net zero commitments to toothless deforestation promises – theoretically lowered that number, but many analysts weren`t sure that all of these commitments would actually lead to real politics. World leaders made a number of climate commitments at COP26, culminating in an agreement to strengthen 2030 emissions reduction targets by the end of next year. A lot has happened in Glasgow in the last couple of weeks. Here is a review of all the important agreements.
COP26 was the time when countries reviewed climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Most of the commitments made at the COP must be monitored on their own. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that while significant progress has been made on the COP26 goals, there is still work to be done and that the key to determining the impact of the conference will be how the Glasgow commitments are effectively implemented. In the Glasgow Climate Pact, governments agreed to put in place a mechanism to help countries that are already suffering loss and damage from climate change, although they have not worked out the details. The pact also called on developed countries to double their joint financing by 2025 to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change. At COP26, some countries made such commitments. Among them, Japan has pledged an additional $2 billion a year for the next five years, and Italy has pledged an additional $1.4 billion a year. A plan to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 has been endorsed by more than 100 countries. An important unresolved question is how many other rich countries will do to help vulnerable nations – especially island states threatened with extinction due to rising sea levels – because of the damage caused by climate change. In addition, at least 20 countries, including Italy, Canada, the United States and Denmark, as well as public financial institutions, have pledged to stop public funding of fossil fuels abroad by the end of 2022 and redirect money to clean energy. The EU, together with Bill Gates and the European Investment Bank, has launched a programme to finance breakthrough climate innovations.
The UK government has announced that financial firms that control around 40% of the world`s wealth – $130 trillion (£95 trillion) – have signed net-zero targets by 2050, including limiting global warming to 1.5°C. More than thirty countries, dozens of states and cities, and several automakers have agreed to work to ensure that new cars and vans sold are emission-free in major markets by 2035 and globally by 2040. The new area will expand an existing marine protected area by approximately 50,000 square miles. Top image from Getty Images.. .